FOREWORD

This book is the result of actual work with first year High School pupils. Furthermore, the completed text has been tried out with them. Their difficulties, standards of reading, and the average development of their minds and taste have constantly been remembered. Whatever teaching quality the book may possess is due to their criticisms.

Hearty thanks are due Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, The Thomas Y. Crowell Company, and The Houghton Mifflin Company for gracious permission to use copyrighted material.

CONTENTS

[Portraits of Authors]
[Introduction]
[I. Definition and Development]
[II. Forms]
[III. The Short-story as Narration ]
[IV. Representative Short-stories ]
[V. Bibliography ]
[Washington Irving: Rip Van Winkle (1820) ]
[Edgar Allan Poe: The Gold Bug (1842)]
[The Purloined Letter (1845) ]
[Nathaniel Hawthorne: Howe's Masquerade (1838)]
[The Birthmark (1843) ]
[Francis Bret Harte: The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1869)]
[Robert Louis Stevenson: The Sire de Malétroit's Door (1878) ]
[Markheim (1885)]
[Rudyard Kipling: Wee Willie Winkie (1888)]
[Notes ]

LIST OF PORTRAITS

[Washington Irving] Frontispiece
[Edgar Allan Poe ]
[Nathaniel Hawthorne]
[Francis Bret Harte]
[Robert Louis Stevenson ]
[Rudyard Kipling]

INTRODUCTION

I
DEFINITION AND DEVELOPMENT